Like a Child
by The Masked Wanderer
Summary: A man sends a letter to Xion, expecting to watch her like a child would, to answer a dark secret about his life...Xion/OC friendship fic.


Like a Child

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts**

Xion squealed in excitement, as she hopped in one place in the toy shop.

Sorry, that doesn't sound right. Maybe because she felt almost nothing about what was going to happen. Maybe because she wasn't supposed to.

There are beings that exist in the same realm as us. They walk like us, they talk like us, and they certainly are able to do the same things that we can. But they are not one of us.

They are "Nobodies",beings who lost their hearts to darkness, whose bodies and souls still live on should their will to live prove most strong; beings without a purpose in life, just nothing. Nothing at all. Yet they still exist…

My name is of no importance to you. I mean, what do you care? By the time you read this, I'll have either moved on to some other godforsaken town or dead. I'm not really sure which one. The point is, it doesn't matter who I am.

But it does matter what she is. It matters a whole lot.

I'm a Wikipediaholic. That is to say, I love going on Wikipedia and looking up things on it. Any time I tell someone this, they just laugh and call me a freak and a nerd. Okay, maybe not so much of the latter, but it still hurts. Or at least it would if I cared what the hell those losers thought about me. Not like it mattered much.

So anyway, when I found out what a "Nobody" was, I was pretty perplexed by it all. So I typed it in Wikipedia and got a few results. Most of them were pretty boring. All I got was some stupid songs, a band I didn't care about too much, and…

The last one really struck me as odd. It said they were a race of beings in some video game called "Kingdom Hearts II". It sounded cheesy at first, and I shook my head in frustration. Who would waste money to play that crap? Just as I was closing my computer and leaving my house, I was thinking about some ridiculous idea. Call me "Shirly", but I was thinking of buying the game, just to see how stupid it was. At first, I refused, saying it was a waste of my time. I mean, who says that they hate something, then check it out ten seconds later? It didn't make any sense. But there was some itty bitty voice encouraging me to buy the stupid game, that I had nothing to lose but the papers in my wallet if I checked it out.

So I bought it. Turns out it was part of some series, but I didn't feel like playing those games. God, kill me if that happened. I bought a PS2, shot the disk in, and started playing. It didn't take me long to realize that it was a combo of Final Fantasy and Disney characters placed inside Disney movie worlds. My initial reaction was "Are you F*&^%** kidding me"? I mean, how stupid could you get? It was never gonna work! Never! You might as well just take an ET game, smolder cheese all over it and sell that! That would get WAYYYY more money then this piece of garbage! And considering how messed up THAT game was, that was saying something…

Eventually, after I defeated Xemnas and the Organization once and for all, I watched the ending with a newfound sense of comfort. For all the cheesy dialogues and the mismatched beautiful characters in childish worlds, there were some sentimental moments both in the middle and beginning of the game that really stuck with me, and that helped make the ending of the game pretty alright. When Sora and Riku opened the door to light with Kairi's letter, I couldn't help but cry a bit. It was pretty sad, after all. And when they got back, Mickey, Donald and Goofy greeting their friends after a long and tedious battle, followed by Roxas and Namine smiling at each other through Sora and Kairi, those things just made the ending all the more happier. After the ending song, I closed the PS2 and left the room…

So that's how I became a Kingdom Hearts super fan.

I wouldn't stop talking about Kingdom Hearts ever since the day I finished Kingdom Hearts II. Even though the intro movie had caught me up storywise, I just couldn't get enough of the Keyblade kid Sora and his goofy sidekicks Donald and Goofy fighting the Heartless. Also, that Kairi was pretty cute to look at, even if she was virtually useless. I loved the many Keyblades that Sora had at his disposal. I loved the many interesting plotlines in each of the worlds he visited. I loved Kingdom Hearts. I loved it, I loved it.

It drove me mad with obsession.

I could barely remember who I was anymore. My life was slipping past the cracks before I could say "Sephiroth". One by one, everything I had known bout life had gone upside down. You're probably expecting me to say that I suffered in school, got kicked out, and ruined my future. No, that's not what I'm gonna say. Everything that made sense no longer made sense, if that makes any sense.

I was introduced to a new ideology, a new way of looking at the world, when I played Kingdom Hearts. My heart became younger, and I saw things more simplistically, more like that of a child than an adult. It drove my parents crazy, but I didn't care. I didn't really want to look at the world through their eyes; it got boring after awhile.

After I finished those games, I decided to call it quits. No more Kingdom Hearts. Not one more game. But I never forgot those life lessons the games taught me, about learning what true friendship was really all about, about the true nature of the human heart, and that promise never fade, no matter what.

I could make friends easier than I used to; I became more understanding of others. It was incredible for me, and for a while, it seemed like everything was complete. Friendships that were true and real, a new perspective on life, it seemed like I was the King of the World.

But life ain't no stupid fairy tale, not like happily ever afters you read about in books or watch in television and video games.

It was about three in the morning one year ago, when the attack happened. I had been sleeping soundly when I heard a loud crash in my bedroom.

Worried, I got up and looked around. Then I saw that my window was broken in several pieces.

_Oh shit_, I kept thinking to myself. What was happening? Was there a burgular? What if he had a weapon? I began to cringe in the spot which I was standing in.

But there was no one there. I searched left and right, but still nothing.

SLASH!

"Gyahhh!" I grabbed my right arm, which was now bleeding profusely. After a few seconds, I removed my left hand, revealing an animal-like scratch.

SLASH!

The animal came at me again, but this time I dodged it. Upon further examination of the animal, I saw that it was black, very small, had yellow eyes, and had black antennas sticking out of his head.

I recognized it at once. "A Heartless?"

Just as I said that, the mystical creature vanished into thin air, like it was never there to begin with…

I learned something pretty powerful that day. It was that if you believed in something so powerfully, with such incredible strength, that it could become real. So very real indeed.

So I waited in anticipation for the next Kingdom Hearts game, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. I had heard that there was a new character called Xion that was being introduced as a fourteenth member in the organization, and many of the unanswered questions in the series so far would be answered.

She's real, and she actually came to my world. I sent her a letter saying that I wanted to meet her, that I was her biggest fan and such. In the letter, I said that I needed to find out more about the Heartless, and why one attacked me in the middle of the night. I wait with anticipation, in the toy store, and I hope she will be able to answer my question.

In the meantime, though, I'll be watching her, like a child….

Hoping to find myself…

**End**


End file.
